Green Needles and Scales

When I look across our West Virginia hills during these leafless wintry days, it is the conifers that alleviate the monotony of brown and black. Scattered among their deciduous brethren, the hemlocks, pines, cedars, and spruce stand in striking contrast against the snow—or with some of it caught in their branches. Conifers may symbolize the holidays in December, but they are far more the rest of the year. Their density provides protective habitat for birds, while furry creatures live below—or build nests among the branches. Their needles and scales (many arborvitae/cedars don’t have needles) add texture to my pots, and their cones embrace the seeds that keep new trees coming. Conifers don’t grow everywhere. I returned to North America only once during the four years we lived in Hawaii. The first thing I did on the University of Utah campus was spontaneously hug a small fir tree just standing there waiting to be appreciated. Yes, it was a somewhat prickly encounter, but if you grew up in the north woods, palm trees and Norfolk Island “pines” aren’t everything! 

My most recent mobiles (aka windchimes) feature conifers in all their textured greens, sometimes with forest animals, sometimes alone. I’ve started embellishing the backs of my figutes so that they can be glazed in the indentations. Some conifer cut-outs have snowflakes on their backs, others have conifer sprigs. Of course, every mobile involves beads too—a lot of them. How did I get into these? I especially love making larger pots, but when you load those into the kiln, there is wasted space between them. They can’t touch each other or the glaze with melt together. Any number of small things can inhabit that unused space between the pots. Over the years, trinkets evolved into windchimes or mobiles. Originally tested on neighbors, I learned to drill the Chesapeake Bay driftwood that my friend Suzie collects for me, to string beads and figures together, to epoxy knots so the wind does not untie them, and to encourage people to hang them in relatively protected places—but, if you like windchimes, where you can hear them.

The Green-- Any Green—And Working Toward Green!

This is the time of year when I get desperate for green! I welcome every sprout and sprig, even the celebratory shamrocks rolled out for the season. I can’t claim to be authentically Irish, but my very Irish husband, in his youthful romanticism, used to tell me that I had shamrocks in my eyes. Who would have guessed I would be happily glazing them half a century later? 

The shamrocks go on mobiles and windchimes. They do extremely well there, in large part because of their rounded shape. That protects them if they are hung where the wind blows the pieces into each other. Some mobile items, such as dogs with tails, for example, or tools with their elongated forms, are more vulnerable when the pieces knock together. The shamrocks come in multiple sizes and have only one commonality: they all end up some kind of green. But you would not know that in their early stages for, even glazed, stoneware seldom resembles its final color before it comes out of the high fire kiln. First, the clay is rolled and cut out. Then each shamrock is cleaned so its edges are smooth and fairly regular. It dries for days, maybe a week, before it is bisque fired. Then it is ready for glazing. But even then they are not very green. Next time you will see what happens to them!

 

I have to admit that shamrock green is not my favorite shade, so I use glazes that are forest green, green tweed, olive, tourmaline, and celadon. Such glazing liberties may be intrinsic to my English and Scottish genes, although that would not explain everything. My German/Polish American mother always made soda bread and cooked a huge pot of corned beef and cabbage for Saint Patrick’s Day. She even named a stray puppy found that day “Shamus.” Mom also referred to my husband Bill as her “wild Irish rogue” and knew him by name long after she lost track of her own kids. Talk about the luck of the Irish. In any event, it all makes for wonderful greens as winter releases its hold and we near spring. 

Beads, beads, beads

When does a little ball of clay become a bead? My answer is when someone uses a straw to make a hole through which to thread it. I make a lot of them. I find making beads salves the too busy mind, lets me be productive when I don’t feel particularly creative, and lets me play in the clay when we are on the road. Beads are small, round (thus durable), repetitive, yet fruitful. They use up clay that may be getting dry. With my long history of rolling cookie balls for our favorite molasses treats, clay balls also avoid a lot of calories. 

What does one do with clay beads? About an inch across, they might qualify as weapons of mass destruction if one were to wear them, although it has been done and smaller ones work well for necklaces and as weights for crocheted shawls. I put them in my windchimes, but the clever manager at Lost River Artisans’ Co-op, Doug Gronholm, uses eight of them to make sets of weights for picnic table cloths. I’ve used Doug’s weights many times and they are great. Like making windchimes, Kahoka beads are well worth rolling!